Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Pro-BDS Prof Who Snubbed Israeli Girl Probed for ‘Nazi Jews’ Remark

A British Jewish academic who told a 13-year-old Israeli girl that she would not answer her questions for a school project until there is peace in Palestine is under police investigation.

Marsha Levine.

The Cambridgeshire Constabulary has confirmed to the London-based Jewish Chronicle that it was investigating a complaint about a comment by archaeo-zoologist Marsha Levine. The former academic at the University of Cambridge who told the Jewish Chronicle in response to an interview about the girl’s request that “the Jews have become the Nazis.”

The Jewish Chronicle’s reporting of the email exchange between Levine and Shachar Rabinovitch of Zichron Yaakov, and later comments reportedly triggered a complaint to the police from the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. The police are investigating the comments as a possible hate crime, according to the Chronicle.

Shachar Rabinovitch had sent an email to Levine last month asking for her help to learn about the early history of the horse and the use of horses by humans in ancient times, as part of a school assignment.

“I know you are a very important person and I’ve read your article about horses and I love horses very much and it will be an honor if you will answer my questions,” the girl wrote in her email to Levine.

Levine responded that she is a member of the Jews for Justice for Palestinians organization and that she supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

“You might be a child, but if you are old enough to write to me, you are old enough to learn about Israeli history and how it has impacted on the lives of Palestinian people,” the academic wrote, and referred her to the Jews for Justice for Palestinians website.

The girl’s mother, Shamir Rabinovitch, posted the email exchange on Facebook.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.